BSMG Blog: Protecting the Future of Families and Businesses

BREAKING NEWS 8/9/17: The Department of Labor announced today that they are seeking to delay the fiduciary rule until July 2019. "In a brief filed in a Minnesota lawsuit Wednesday, the DOL indicated it had submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a proposal to delay the rule from Jan. 1, 2018, until July 1, 2019. The OMB must review and approve the proposal before it can go into effect." - InvestmentNews

BREAKING NEWS 5/22/17: Yesterday, the new Labor Secretary announced in the Wall Street Journal, that he will not delay the DOL Fiduciary Rule further. He did, however, announce a temporary enforcement action that will delay the enforcement of the rule until January 1^st , 2018. This means that firms will have temporary relief through January to finalize their plans.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE 4/5/17: The Department of Labor released a final rule Tuesday delaying the implementation of its fiduciary duty regulation. Under this measure the rule's April 10th applicability date has been pushed back to June 9th. This postponement means that the expanded definition of fiduciary as well as the impartial conduct standards will become applicable on June 9th. Written disclosure requirements and the full best-interest contract exemption are still scheduled for Jan. 1st, 2018, implementation. To find out more read the full InvestmentNews article. 

Breaking news came from the Department of Labor (DOL) yesterday, as they sent the final Fiduciary Rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), requesting a 60-day delay. The Rule has not been published in a Unified Agenda and is pending regulatory review. All eyes are on the OMB right now as the effective date of the Fiduciary Rule grows closer to the applicability date set for April 10th.  

Since the Presidential memo on February 3^rd we have all been waiting on pins and needles for the next action. Today as a first step the DOL issued a 60 day delay.

"The U.S. Department of Labor has announced a proposed extension of the applicability dates of the fiduciary rule and related exemptions, including the Best Interest Contract Exemption, from April 10 to June 9, 2017."

"The proposed extension is intended to give the department time to collect and consider information related to the issues raised in the memorandum before the rule and exemptions become applicable."- Department of Labor

Check out some of the news articles below to learn more.

Multiple sources have reported today that President Trump has signed a memorandum instructing the Department of Labor (DOL) to re-examine the fiduciary ruling that has been creating a buzz in the industry for the past year. 

“President Trump's action to delay the Obama administration's fiduciary rule for further study is a wise one,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said in a statement. “This regulation is deeply flawed.” His quote and others can be found in this article from Investment News

"While early reports said Trump wanted to push off the rule's implementation, originally slated for April, by 180 days, the order did not mention any delay. The Labor Department late on Friday said it was considering legal options for delaying."  Read more here. 

Check out some of the news articles and the official memorandum from the White House below to learn more about what this means for the financial service industry and what we can expect going forward. 

InvestmentNews: Breaking news coming out of Washington this afternoon as a bill has been introduce to delay the DOL fiduciary rule. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., introduced a bill today that would delay the implementation date of the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule by two years from enactment of the legislation.

In a continued effort to keep you informed on the recent DOL ruling, Brokers' Service Marketing Group recently hosted this webinar with AIG's Deidra Hubenak.

We've heard a lot about the DOL's recent fiduciary ruling over the last few months. In fact, we just hosted a webinar on how this ruling will affect the life insurance industry and the sale of life insurance products (check back for a recording later this week). So what about annuities? How will annuity sales be affected by the DOL's strict ruling? InvestmentNews recently published an article that projects indexed annuity sales will fall 30% due to the ruling. Read below to find out why. 

Many financial professionals have one thing in common when it comes to the subject of the DOL Fiduciary Regulations: They have a lot of questions. In this post, I’ve highlighted the questions I hear most frequently, as well as the answers.